He Alone to Blame
by Koalaura
Summary: Rumplestiltskin returns home, after his wife has been taken by Killian and his men. Baelfire wants to know where his Mama is, and Rum is left with the knowledge that he is to blame for everything.


**A/N: First part of two separate stories. Angst isn't exactly my strong suit, but I wanted to explore what Rum faced, when he had to go home to Bae that night. As usual, there's no beta. Just my eyes and their extreme inability to always catch things. All mistakes are my own.**

It was late when Rumplestiltskin finally stumbled back into his small home, after his trip to the docks, to try to get his wife back. He didn't know what to tell Bae. He couldn't tell him the truth, he just... he _couldn't_. He couldn't tell his young boy that his mother had left them, and that she wouldn't be returning. Not because she didn't want to be here. No. He couldn't do that. _Wouldn't_ do that.

But that left him with not knowing what to tell him.

"Papa...?" Bae's voice was small, and tired, as he came stumbling from his bed in the loft just above where Rumplestiltskin's own bed was.

Schooling his features to the best of his ability, Rumplestiltskin ran a shaking hand through his son's hair, "It's late, son. Why aren't you in bed?"

Bae ignored his father's question and looked up at him in the innocent confusion that only a child could manage, "Where's Mama?"

Rumplestiltskin froze, still not sure of what to tell his son. He couldn't tell him the truth. "Mum's...," he felt his chest go cold, with the realization of his only options: the truth, or a lie that would cover any and all questions for the rest of his life. "She's gone, Bae."

Still looking up with confusion, Bae's head tilted to the side. He was too young to understand what his Papa, his poor, shaking, crippled Papa, meant. "Gone?"

"Your mum's dead, Bae." The words came out too easily, which ashamed Rumplestiltskin a good deal more than the lie itself. It was spoken so quietly, and filled with pain, that Bae had to understand.

Looking to the small boy, Rumplestiltskin saw realization dawn in his son's eyes, shortly followed by the welling of tears. Warm chocolate eyes filled with moisture that spilled down soft, full cheeks as Bae shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't, and only managed to let out a sob. Rumplestiltskin pulled his son into his chest in an embrace, unable to let his own urge to cry take over. In the face of his previous cowardice, he had to be brave. Lie or no, he had to be strong for his boy. His precious, sweet, innocent boy, that had done no wrong in the world, and yet had been abandoned by his mother and her selfish desires.

Wriggling about, and sobbing, Bae pulled himself from his father's embrace, and now looked up at him with contempt. His head shook quickly, "No. No. _No_." Bae's refusal to believe his word repeated over and over, as he fought off each new attempt to be pulled into his father's arms, even going so far as to lash out at him and run across the room. "This is because of the men at the bar, isn't it? _Isn't it_?!"

Stunned, Rumplestiltskin could not find it in himself to agree, or disagree. It only further irritated his son's emotional distraught.

"They took her. Killed her. You didn't help her. You... you didn't _protect_ her, like you said you would!"

Before Rumplestiltskin could do anything, his son had taken off and out the front of their home, into the night. Finally, his own tears fell as he found he could not bring himself to chase after Bae. Because, as much as he hated to admit it, Bae was as right as he could be, with the lie he now believed. It _was_ his fault. _Everything_ was his fault. It always was.

Every look of scorn any of them were given, every word spoken with cruelty, every time they had been shunned... was all because of him. Of his cowardice. Of his inability to face his fears.

He ran, to come home to protect his family _here_. And, yet, it seemed that being alive had done nothing but the opposite. The world was falling down around him, crumbling and deteriorating, and there was nothing he could do. He didn't want to do anything about it. He would just fail in that, too. He would fail in everything.

Rumplestiltskin failed in his marriage. Rumplestiltskin failed in defending his people in the war. Rumplestiltskin failed in saving his wife from her own bad decisions. Rumplestiltskin failed his only son, by being a coward. Rumplestiltskin was more than a coward. He was a cowardly failure, and he knew it.

He could not change this. Would not change it. So, he sat, and stared, at the door that his son had run through. He was alone. Completely and utterly alone.

And he was the only one to blame for it all.


End file.
